U.N. Committee Adopts Resolution Calling for End to Israel Aid

November 8, 1988

UNITED NATIONS (Nov. 7)

A United Nations committee has adopted a resolution requesting U.N. bodies not to extend any form of assistance to Israel and condemned the Jewish state for measures it has taken to quell the uprising in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The resolution was adopted Friday night by the General Assembly’s Economic and Financial Committee, also known as the Second Committee.

The vote was 90-14 with 14 abstentions. Israel was joined in voting against the resolution by the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and most of the West European countries.

Other parts of the resolution called on the U.N. Centre for Human Settlements to supervise an assistance program for the Palestinian people, and to provide funds for 20 experts to prepare an adequate program in close cooperation with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The fund would require an extra appropriation of some $127,000 by the United Nations.

The resolution and the bitter attacks against Israel in the course of the committee’s debate were sharply criticized by the United States and Israel.

The American representative, Harry Cahill, complained that “at a time of healing and increasing understanding within the United Nations, we come to something as destructive and damaging as this document (the anti-Israeli resolution).”

Cahill noted that the United States is the largest single donor of economic assistance to the Palestinian people and that Washington earmarked $15 million for that purpose for 1989.

The Israeli delegate, Yaacov Cohen, called the resolution “polemical and impractical,” and said that Israel would not be willing to receive the experts referred to by the resolution.

Cohen suggested that the money to pay for those experts should be spent by the United Nations in disaster areas such as Bangladesh.